Good morning, is it really too early to begin planning for next school? Today, we are continuing with an exploration of Ancient Egypt in the Enteral Egypt series. The run time for this episode is 52:46 and is called Legacy.
This episode focuses on what legacy remains of Ancient Egypt. It kicks off in Cairo, Egypt. The narrator talks about Islam and how it is part of everyday life in Egypt. The documentary is taking place during Ramadan and the Egyptian citizens are waiting to break their fast. Islam is a relatively new development in Egypt in comparison to the Ancient Egyptian civilization. Then the documentary shifts to talking about the pyramids. The narrator talks about the pyramids and the size of the pyramids. They talk about the tourists who visited the pyramids over the years. The pyramids continue to inspire the world as it is the only Wonder of the Ancient World to survive. The Greeks were the first foreigners to see the pyramids and gave them their names. There was a cake that was shaped like a pyramid and so the pyramids were named for the cake. A tour guide talks about who had the right to be buried in the pyramids. The pyramids were mainly used to bury the Kings and Queens. Then there is a discussion of the sphinx, who stands guard over the pyramids. The tour guide talks about the sphinx and whom the sphinx was formed for. She talks about how a pharaoh had a dream that he needed to uncover the sphinx in order to become king. The sphinx had been covered and uncovered over the years. The tour guide talks about how the sphinx was mutilated. Then there was a discussion on the Karnak temple and about the many bricks that were required to build it. It is one of the world’s largest religious complexes. Today, French archeologists are working to restore and build some of the features of the Karnak temple site. A stone cutter is examining a statue of Tutankhamun. He is planning a restoration of that particular statue because he was an important pharaoh. The restoration is designed to be reversible in case any other original pieces of the statue are found in the future. The stone cutter talks about using modern tools and finishing it off with older tools in order to give the statues the proper finish. The team is also working on other restoration throughout the temple. The stone cutters are continuing to learn more and more about their craft while doing the restoration work. The stone cutters will have generations of work to do. The narration goes back to talking about the pyramids and how they are missing pieces. Some of the pyramids have lost their tips. The pyramids have changed over time. People after the Ancient Egyptians used the pyramids as a quarry. Even modern Cairo was built using the stone from the pyramids. One Egyptian sultan used bricks from the pyramids for his own tomb. In this section, the narrator talks about this sultan’s tomb. Then there is a discussion on how modern people live in the cities of the dead. The narration draws a comparison to the cities of the dead that are around the pyramids. The people who were buried in these cities of the dead were the pyramid builders. The tour guide talks about the cities of the dead and who was buried in these cities and why they were buried in the cities… Yes, it is still very fast-paced, and yes, I still had to pause and rewind to watch this series. This series is proving to be a disappointment in watching. It’s just too fast. It was also annoying to listen to the section on the sultan’s tomb that used bricks from the pyramids. There are plenty of other excellent documentaries that talk about Ancient Egypt. The most exciting thing about this documentary was the discovery of a ship discovered near the pyramids. It took years to excavate and now it is on display. It feels like this was a travel episode and not a legacy of the Ancient Egypt episode. Teachers plan on giving this series on ancient Egypt a miss.
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Good morning! Is it a little too early to start planning for the next school year? Today we are going to review a documentary on the Nile River and how it helped Ancient Egypt become a great civilization in the Ancient World. The documentary is called Eternal Egypt: The River Nile. The run time for this documentary is 52:21.
The Nile River allowed the Ancient Egyptians to create one of the greatest civilizations in the Ancient World. The river stretches for over 7,000 miles beginning deep in the heart of Africa. Temples, pyramids, and great cities only hint at the greatness of Ancient Egypt. New discoveries in Egypt keep rewriting the history of Ancient Egypt. These cities witnessed and proclaimed the greatness of the Pharaohs that ruled over them. The documentary starts when the Nile meets the Mediterranean Sea and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone finally cracked the code of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Finally, archeologists could read the language of the ancient Egyptians. The Nile River was the greatest asset to the ancient Egyptians. The Nile changed course over history. At one point, it flowed near the pyramids. Perhaps this was how the pyramid builders transported the bricks to the pyramid site. The Nile was celebrated in Ancient Egypt. The Ancient Egyptians had plenty of gods and goddesses tied to the Nile. The next section this documentary goes to is Luxor. The Nile River shaped the lives of the people who lived in this area. You can see the sites of ancient Egypt from the river. Even today, the river continues to transport people including cruise ships. One ship, Sudan continues to make waves on the sea. It was the ship built for the Egyptian Royal Family. It was also the ship Agatha Christie rode on. She wrote the first few chapters of the Death on the Nile book on this ship. Christie’s book would help fuel Egyptian Mania. The Western world loved learning and hearing about Ancient Egypt. The Theban Necropolis was explored and an expert in the area did some talking in this section. New discoveries are being made to challenge our understanding of Ancient Egypt. This expert explores the tomb of a vizier of Egypt. She looks at the images that were in the tomb. The images show the riches that came from the Nile. Without the Nile, there would be no Egypt. Even today, the majority of the population lives along the banks of the Nile. Like in the Ancient World, the Nile continues to be where Egyptian agriculture takes place. The water would be diverted to help water the fields. Even today, diverting water from the Nile continues to be practiced. It is here a farmer talks about taking water from the Nile to water his crops. Another farmer talks about using the plow to plow up his fields instead of using a tractor. Then the documentary goes back to the necropolis. For decades people lived among the dead. One man used a tomb as his bed. However, this changed in the 1950s when the village was raised to the ground and the people moved away from the village to preserve the tombs. Perhaps these villages would go and rob the tombs of their goods. The necropolis expert goes into the tunnels and explores the old tombs. She does paint of vivid picture of what happened to the tombs and their contents over the years. How else did the Nile River impact Ancient Egypt? How did the Egyptians use the Nile to build a civilization? Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more. Woah Nellie, this was a speedy documentary, especially the narration. I had to stop, rewind, and start the documentary several times to write this documentary. It also seemed to me that there was something wrong with the sound. The documentary was very hard to follow because of the speed. There was also way too much focus on modern life in Egypt along the Nile. To me, it seems that the title was very misleading. I was hoping that this documentary would get better, but it got worse. I would not recommend showing this documentary to a history classroom. Hello, time for a break from individual documentary blogs and I am kicking off the new year by exploring historical YouTube Channels. It has been interesting seeing what other channels come up as a result of going through documentary series. What I share here are channels that can be mined for content in use in a lecture or for a history writing prompt. Additionally, some of the channels I share could be used if a student is working on a biography project. The first channel was not a part of my YouTube algorithm but was a Facebook suggestion.
Classical and Ancient History by Guy de la Bedoyere – YouTube This channel is hosted by a familiar face to Time Team fans. This channel belongs to Guy de la Bedoyere and this was the channel he used when he taught History and Classical Civilization. When he retired from teaching he kept the channel up and is posting his history talks. Although he focuses on Ancient History with this channel, there are discussions from later periods. Overall the focus is on ancient civilizations including old coins, Samuel Pepys, ancient Rome, and Ancient Egypt. Yes, from time to time he talks about his experiences on the Time Team. World History – YouTube This channel is similar to Untold Past. It focuses on World War I, World War II, Nazi Germany, and the 20th Century. World History was a channel established a year ago and new content is posted weekly. So far a lot of the focus has been on the crimes and punishments of the Nazis who participated in the Holocaust. Additional to the crimes and punishment of the Nazis, there are videos talking about the victims as well. Reading the Past – YouTube Dr. Kat is a researcher and lecturer that specializes in Early Modern literature and culture. She was featured in the documentary on Lady Rochford. Dr. Kat established her channel four years ago and posts new content weekly. She talks about a variety of historical subjects including the Pilgrimage of Grace, knighting ceremonies, and Shakespeare. The videos run from 10 minutes to 30 minutes long. Now that we got some of those channels out of the way, I want to share some additional channels. Sometimes the challenge of running a blog that reviews documentaries is not going overboard on my favorite historical topics. I want to provide a variety of documentaries that way I give teachers plenty of options for showing in the classroom. The next channel involves one of my favorite topics big old boats. Big Old Boats – YouTube The world is covered with water and so civilizations had to travel by water to get anywhere. This channel covers the history of ships, ocean liners, and traveling by water. The channel is relatively new being started two years ago and kicked off its exploration of ships with a look at Queen Elizabeth. The channel started off slow but has recently picked up with its posting. Ships include SS Columbia, Carol Deering, Queen Elizabeth 2, and the RMS Republic. Railroad Street – YouTube Railroad Street is a channel that covers the history of transportation whether it was on the railroads or on the water. The channel was started three years ago and only recently started posting more and more videos. Both railroad history and Great Lakes shipping history so far have been covered on this channel. The episode on the Marquette and Bessemer Ferry is a fascinating tale and the short video on Princess May was neat too. Historic Travels – YouTube This is more of a fun channel talking about ships, mainly with a focus on the Titanic. However, there were videos on the Oceanos and Lusitania. New content is posted weekly and the creator does deep dives into a variety of aspects of the Titanic. The animations he posted featuring the sinking of ships are well done and very interesting. Maritime Horrors – YouTube This channel features stories of tragedies that have happened on the high seas. It was a channel established two years ago. Both known and more obscure tragedies are featured as well as maritime mysteries. The videos run from eight minutes to thirty minutes. Disasters include the Andrea Doria, Dona Paz Fire, Mount Hood, and Princess Sophia. |
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The purpose of this blog is to share information on what can be used in a classroom, private school, or home school setting as well as serve as a portfolio of my personal and professional work. The reviews are my opinions and should be treated as such. I just want to provide a tool for teachers to select documentaries for their classrooms. |